PixelShots:Kerala Travel & Nature

More photos on Herbal flowers of Shankupushpam or blue peas, also called butterfly peas and scientifically named as Clitoria Ternatea. The famous Ayurvedic herbal flower plant of Kerala, at the same time ingredient of many recipes in Asian countries. Despite its medicinal value the plant is seen all around unnoticed in between the shrubs and small trees. As it's a perennial herb most of times the flowers are seen peeping from the greenery of the plant or tree it's having an entangled affair for existence.

Flowers of shankupushpam appears in colors of snowy white,dark blue, fluorescent blue ,violet etc. Have got some violet flowers of shankupushpam here and have already posted the photos of blue and white flowers of Aparajitas in previous postings.

Butterfly peas-Herbal flower's Bud

Walking around after the rain, these are some of the photos i snapped from the nature. As these plants of Shankupushpams are seen abundant all over in between trees and plants, they came in front naturally and i couldn't help taking some closeup snaps of the flowers and buds before leaving.

Am trying to present a little more details on the medicinal value of this common tropical herbal plant by this post. Peculiarity of this plant is, no part of the plant is unusable as per Ayurvedic maestros. In ancient books on Ayurveda the plant, its roots, flowers and even leaves are mentioned for the preparation of peculiar medicines.

Shankupushpam or Bluepea flowers are mentioned in a variety of synonyms in the books of Ayurveda. Butterfly pea flowers and plants are mentioned in most of the old Ayurvedic scriptures for its herbal medicinal value. Some of the common ayurvedic synonyms of aparajita are supuspi, sveta, girikarnika, gokarnika, mohanasi, ardrakarni, mahasveta, sephanda, vishnukrantha etc. Also the flower is known as aral, malayamukki, Kakkanam etc.

Digital Photographyin Macro mode. Not just digital macros, but digital super macros, as the special focus mode is named in the digital cam of Fuji Film. The maximum minimum distance that can be focused was seen as 4 cms in the camera manual, but could't get something that closer eventhough i tried. The focus length was shown as 6mm in all photos taken with super macro mode.

Raindrop in Green Leaf

Just some digital snaps of rain water drops i got from garden plants just after a rain. Being always amazed by the tiny wonders of tiny world around us, always gives a try to snap them whenever i can, especially if a new camera comes in hand. These photos were taken for the sole purpose of testing the Super Macro focus mode i saw in the camera of Fuji Finepix S5700 S700

These guys haven't reached the ground yet!, yea the rain drops......
Its easy to leave them unnoticed if you doesn't care to walk around and watch the nature close. In every leaves and flowers we may notice those tears of the nature clinging, and taking their last breaths of life, before gonna fall down the plants or getting vaporized in the heat of sun-rays. Just gave a try to have them photographed, with a Digicam i wanted to test for its capabilities in seeing things closer.

Photographing some birds seen around while walking on a rainy day, in the interval i got between rains. Thanking to the 10x optical zoom of the Digital camera, else i would have been unable to get the birds even spotted in the photos, for their tree living, easily disturbed and flying away nature. Also spotted some green feathered fruit eating birds, but they seemed much busy flying here and there whenever i tried for a snap. They are the pappaya fruit eaters who tastes the papayas right from the trees before anyone can even notice the fruits are ripe there.

Bird watching around my house in Kerala. A heavy downpour just over and i decided to try the camera as bright sunlight spilled onto the wet nature around. What i got in my camera in the birds category apart from nature snaps are some Woodpeckers and Myna or Mina-bird renowned for its singing and talking abilities-the bird photos are posted just below.

So this is the very same bird species that comes in the advertisement of the major shoe brand, woodlands, claiming their shoe leather will even stand a woodpecker's pecking beak. Hmm the bird has got a universal acclamation on its beak's tearing power huh.

You know what these pecker birds doing when knocking on those tree trunks, they not eating the tree but trying to get a hold of those insects, butterfly larvaes, spiders, worms, cocoons, caterpillars etc which may be hiding deep inside the tree trunk cracks and holes. They pulls out the insects with the drilling efficient beaks and the woodpeckers sticky long toungue does the rest of consuming process.

Some other interesting facts on this bird are, the woodpecker's nostrils are guarded with fine hairs which stops the small wooden and other debris from going inside the nose during the pecking process, by this born tree driller. Something similar guards its eyes too during its beak is at work, a fine membrane covering which closes over the eye balls as needed, as an extra protection with the ordinary eye lids.

Woodpecker's brain is known to be evolved from the time being in orientation and size to adapt the sudden impact from its beak during pecking on hard wood.

Eco-Tourism

Tourism projects based on Nature, which includes environment awareness programmes and interpretations along with benefits to local people can be termed as eco tourism. Eco tourism should maintain the rhythm of nature along with the tourism activities. The International Eco tourism society/TIES, defines eco tourism as, 'responsible travel that conserves the nature and sustains the well-being of local people'. In short eco tourism is the co existence of nature conservation and nature tourism projects.

Kerala, the small Indian state which is bordered with the green stretched western ghat mountains in the east and beautiful beaches along the shores of Arabian sea in the west, no wonder the natural topography with rivers and mountains are much ideal for Tourism of all kind. Tourism being the major revenue to the state, it can't be ignored as well as the God gifted Natural beauty along with the flora and fauna has to be preserved from the hazards of Tourism. Their emerged the concept of eco tourism and started ecological friendly tourism project developments with utter care given to the fragility of nature we are getting engaged into.Thenmala eco tourism is just one among them and also the first planned eco tour project of Kerala and even India.

It's found that about 60 percent of worlds plants, reptiles, fishes, amphibians, birds, mammals etc are seen in about 25 spots of the world which covers only 1.4 percent of the whole land area. Western ghat forests are considered one among those spots and thus conservation of nature and wildlife is most important here.

Along with the Western Ghats forests which abounds Kerala's eastern side, about 2324 square kilometer is considered protected area having two National Parks and 12 Wildlife sanctuaries. The eco system inside the tropical forests of western ghats is an ideal support from the part of Nature for the development of eco-tourism projects here in Kerala.

The first planned eco tourism project implementation done in India, is in and around the Parappar dam and Shenthurinny wildlife sanctuary forests of Thenmala. The eco tourism project here in Thenmala is a joint venture by the Forest, irrigation and Tourism departments of Kerala. Thenmala is a small village in the valley of western ghat mountain ranges and is seen covered in the tropical deciduous mixed forested land.

Thenmala the Malayalam word means Honey Mountains and the honey collected from these forests is considered special and medicinal. You being a traveler especially if comes under the category of nature lover or one who loves trekking, forest traveling and forest camps, this eco tour spot is ideal for you. You can do trekking and forest explorations in the dense greenery, cladding the mountain slopes and valleys here in Thenmala.

Eco Tourism zones of Thenmala

The eco tourism project attractions and activities of Thenmala are distributed in 3 zones coming in around 500 meters radius. The major spots of this ecotour spot are:-

Sculpture park and leisure zonephotos from Thenmala eco tourism project, Kerala/ India. What you can expect here is sculptures blended into the green extravaganza of the tropical tropical dense forest, in this small valley village of western ghats. The leisure zone and sculpture garden is beside the Thenmala dam, the Irrigation-hydro electric dam of Kollam district / Kerala. The main attractions of the leisure zone and sculpture park are, as the names implies sculptures and interesting resting points inside the forest outskirts of Schenthurinny wildlife sanctuary beside the dam.

Nature trails, board walks, hanging bridge across the river stream that continues from the dam spillway etc are other attractions. The sculptures of animals, cosmic flying men, depiction of ideas and thoughts, mythical characters like Vikramaditya and vethala, lord shiva, parasurama the Hindu avatar of God etc are arranged in various points of this sculpture park. We have to walk through the eco nature trail to have a sight of these sculptures and in the middle there are nicely designed, stepped resting platforms inside forest. The resting points are vast enough for a group of 50 to 60 tourists to be seated together and can have some leisurely activities in between your tour trip.

Thenmala Leisure Zone

The signboard of leisure zone, showing deterioration with that missing 'i' in tourism. We visited the adventure zone before being here by 5:30pm of the day. It will be better to visit the adventure zone before leisure zone in-case you are here after 4 pm as adventure zone will be closing by 5:30 pm whereas leisure zone by 6:30pm.

Leisure zone is much near to the tourist facilitation centre from where you have to get the entry tickets and directions to various spots of this Kerala's eco tourism project area.

Photos from the Adventure zone of Thenmala eco tourism project, Kerala, India. The major tourist attractions here in Adventure zone of Thenmala are, Forest Canopy Elevated walkway bridge, Nature trails through the forested hills, rock climbing, mountain biking, river crossing, Burmese bridge walk, boating in the forest pond, rapelling etc. There is a place where you can do some bow and arrow practice but by the time we visited, it was out of order.

You shouldn't miss this adventure spot of Thenmala ecotours, even if you are not much adventurous. Being adventurous helps you to get the most out of this eco tourism location of southern Kerala. For a Nature tourist the canopy walkway and Nature trails will be an experience with chances to watch the nature, birds and the mighty forest trees closer walking towards them.

After verifying the tickets you will be entering right into a museum here. A descriptive display of all the types of rope knots used during rock climbing like adventure sports and also by Surgeons, Fishermen, rescue professionals, sailors etc. From the knot museum you will move on to the Canopy Walkway or Elevated bridge of the adventure zone, a must visit here.

From canopy bridge you can either walk to the top of the hill and traverse through the nature trails or select a more adventurous way to go down to the forest pond through a rope (valley crossing), exactly the same way you have to cross the river using ropes. The above photograph is the starting point of the elevated walking bridge which rises up through the forest tree canopy. The information board says, "Resemble Canopy Walkway. The canopy bridge hangs suspended over the forest floor". Specifications of the bridge is gives as, Length of the Bridge: 120 meter, Number of Steps: 109, Number of tree canopies: 11 big trees. The platform of the bridge is done with of wooden planks paved over steel structure,very similar to the old hanging bridge of Punalur.

Am gonna walk up through the bridge to the top of trees, what about you giving me company...

Photos of Big trees found in the Thenmala forests and the river Kallada that find its way through this green lush evergreen forests of western ghats found here. The nature of the forest here in and around Shenduruny Wildlife Sanctuary is mixed deciduous forest with evergreen ones. The trees here in this post are photographed from the Deer park of Thenmala eco tourism. Most of the trees found here are huge tall evergreen trees-the typical Western Ghat Nature. The deer park is meant to protect the deers used to stay out of inner forests.

The greenery of the forest is preserved around the park as the name suggests- ECO TOURISM. Have found some interesting trees along the river side of this park. Interesting in the sense of trunk shapes and sizes especially when coming to the bottom part. Most of the forest trees in this park are having a name board telling their names including scientific names. Some of the trees found here are Therakam, Karanjili, Kambakom, Karimarom etc. You may have heard about Kambakom, the tree renowned for its strength and which is used in the construction of bridges and even elephant training cages in olden times. The vehicular hanging bridge of Punalur was having Kambakom wooden planks in its platform.

The tree to the above right is seen while we walking around in the deer park after snapping some of the deers there inside the fenced part of the deer rehabilitation. Comparing to other ones this tree is small, but the tree trunk appeared like layers rooted into the ground.

From olden times man used to make tree houses in forests and in trees near to farm lands, to cater as a safe dwelling from wildlife in the forests and also to guard farm lands and all. These days many of the Nature Tourism spots of Kerala has tree houses mainly for tourists. If the tree house here in Thenmala is just for the sake of climbing up and watching around, their are many tree houses as part of tourist resorts in and around Kerala, mainly in the Wayanadu district, which are equipped with all the amenities a modern tourist will need in his room to make his holiday stays here in Kerala memorable. Most of them are exactly like a well furnished resort room, with balconies. Differentiating them from ordinary resort rooms, they will be made entirely of wood and bamboos and ofcourse will be placed over a tree, thereby people can call them tree house resorts.

Photos of Deers in the deer rehabilitation centre from the forests of Thenmala/ Kollam/ Kerala/ India. This deer park of Thenmala is a distant part of Thenmala eco tourism and is built within the Kallada river side forest. Apart from various varieties of deers what you can see interesting here is a Tree House and a small Childrens park with some ecologically blended resting places.

Various walking routes into the forests can be seen and if you a group of people with plenty of time to spend here no harm in walking into the park forests. What you will witness for sure in these forests in big trees of the western ghats and most of them with a name board fixed by the park authorities, So that you won't end up disappointed thinking of what tree this can be.

The forest in deer rehabilitation centre is a collection of huge trees and many of them are having interesting trunk shapes. The deers are fenced inside the forested land and you can walk around the fence and watch for the deers. Deer herds can be seen around the water tanks near to the fencings. Am giving you some photos of the deers we saw here within our limited time we spent in this deer rehabilitation centre.The info about deers given here are obtained from the tourist info board fixed at some places of the deer park.

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